The Aristarchus Plateau

About This Photograph

Normally, we think of the moon as fairly colorless, especially in comparison to the Earth. But the moon is not entirely without color, as this image of the Aristarchus Plateau region shows. The plateau itself is the roughly rectangular brownish region at the center of the picture. It is punctuated by the bright young crater Aristarchus, and the older, lava-filled crater Herodotus. The feature starting to the right of Herodotus and meandering across the plateau is Schroter's Valley, possibly a collapsed lava tube or ancient lava flow. The plateau apparently gets its color from an iron-rich material spewed out onto it by volcanic activity.

Other areas of the moon also show some color, as can been seen in the full-moon image here.

This image appeared as Astronomy Picture of the Day on 13 September 2002.